Domsa Károlyné, Fekete Gézáné, Kovács Mária (szerk.): Gondolatok a könyvtárban / Thoughts in the Library (A MTAK közleményei 30. Budapest, 1992)

KÖNYVTÁR ÉS KORSZERŰSÉG – LIBRARY AND MODERNITY

Co-operation in social science information makes possible, which does not mean easy, the establishment of information networks, bibliographical or other. Many other types of joint enterprises may be foreseen. The difficulties Although so many ways are open to international cooperation, they seem not to be as frequently followed as one would wish. A number of obstacles have indeed to be overcome. The most difficult among them are mentioned hereafter, without trying to establish an order of importance between them. The world in which we live is distinctly made up of unequal nations. Some are rich, others are poor; some are industrialized, others are at a lower stage of development. This obvious fact creates conditions which often make difficult for people or institutions in a given country to cooperate with their counterparts in a wholly different country. Most kinds of cooperation need financial means, and in some countries there is no money available for the purpose. Even if money is given, it does not at short notice remedy all technical deficiencies which may frustrate intents to communicate. The state of development has also consequences on the establishment of national priorities, and in many developing countries the improvement of SSID is not ranked very high by policy-makers, so that people ready to engage in international cooperation for SSID are left without resources for the purpose. Another kind of obstacle arises from differences between the technical tools used in the various countries, which make exchange and communication slower and more expensive. One example may be taken in the classical domain of bibliographic descriptions. Most of the computerized bibliographical systems agree to use a MARC (Machine Readable Catalogue) format, initiated by the Library of Congress. But the potential advantages of this agreement are lessened by the existence of a rich family of MARCs, respectively developed by diverse countries or even by system builders: LCMARC, UKMARC, UNIMARC, INTERMARC, DMARC and many others. All start from the same principles and apply many common rules, but differ on some points from each other so that the records created within these formats are not automatically compatible. In order to make possible an international exchange of these computerized records, conversion softwares have to be written at a price, and losses of information cannot be completely avoided. In the same mode, progress has yet to be made towards the harmonization of „ Gondolatok a kônyvtârban " 191